


Canvas

by tsukitachinu



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Death, Disturbing Themes, M/M, Survival, mentionned taeyong, mild violence, painter!kun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21859222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukitachinu/pseuds/tsukitachinu
Summary: Every canvas is a chance for Kun to explore the world. He takes his brush, paints a landscape and prays to the god to let him have the gift one more time before entering the painting.Except this time, after entering a painting, he wishes he never drew that but there's no turning back.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Qian Kun
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19
Collections: kuniversism





	Canvas

**Author's Note:**

> prompt #30  
> To the prompter ; I'm sorry I don't think it goes as you picture it, but I hope you'll like it nonetheless ! Thanks for this amazing prompt !!
> 
> Thanks to B for enduring me when I put the ideas together, and thanks to L for beta-ing it and help me make the story more straight-forward and understandable !

There are few things Kun wished to experience one day. One of them was to travel the world. To see every natural phenomenon. The next one on his bucket list was to see the northern lights. And maybe, he will see them someday, even though he lived far, far away.

It's more likely than falling in love, he thought.

Installing the canvas on the wooden easel, he closed his eyes, trying hard to find inspiration. He still craved those northern lights. Oh he was longing for them. Will this be the day he sees them? Is he worthy enough? He wonders. Maybe it was time. Maybe he did practice enough, and now he was ready. If not now, when?

So he picked the colors on his palette and started painting northern lights on his white canvas, his travelling window. Thanks to it, he was able to visit places he never thought he could. He saw so many great places, so many different landscapes, architecture, wonders of nature. He often wonders why the gods picked him as worthy enough to get to see all of this. But he was glad they did.

He is glad he got picked.

It took him some time to finish his piece. A beautiful piece. The lights seemed to dance on the night sky, with the snow as their dancefloor. It was graceful and at the same time vividly cold. Kun loved it. He couldn't wait to get there.

So he looked up, trying to see if he still had his gift.

He felt like he would always get picked, but one can never be cautious enough.

After a few minutes of getting no answers, he tried. Eyes closed, he put his grounding brush in his pocket and marched forward into the painting. When he opened his eyes, he was freezing . In the best way possible.

Kun was now in the north of Norway, witnessing northern lights with his own two eyes. He couldn't believe it, he got so lucky, he got picked again for this great power, this great capability.

He could feel the cold wind on his cheeks, snow cracking under every step of his towards the light. He wanted to get closer, closer, closer. But could never reach it. So he just stood there, under the mesmerizing lights, head facing up, jaw wide open, trying to take all of its beauty in, trying to understand how something could be this beautiful. And how he got lucky enough to see it. To come to it.

He looked at it for a few hours. At some point, he walked around, seeing different angles, hearing the snow under his boots. At other times, he just sat down, feeling the coldness of the snow on his legs, though he couldn't care less when the show was this wonderful.

After a few hours of what he truly believed was the best memory of his life, Kun stood up, took in one more glance at the lights, and grabbed his brush to check how it was.

The brush was still wet.

And then, Kun stepped out of the painting and went back to his room. He felt sad for a while but didn't forget to check his brush, which was now completely dry. He smiled to himself knowingly. He managed to get yet another extraordinary memory and even though he now feels sad he's not seeing the lights anymore, he still has the memories of them.

And the painting.

The painting goes next to all the other paintings of wonderful places he went: somewhere in France, somewhere in Australia, some places in Japan and some others in Brazil. And so many more. Kun felt so lucky he could travel the world like this and not be stuck here. Here? Where did he live exactly?

______________________________________

It was time for another painting. It was always time for a new painting. This time he went for a landscape, as always, but a meadow and a forest one. He felt the humidity of the forest, he could hear birds singing, a squirrel going around, he felt the grass on his ankle and painted. The painting was breathtaking as always. Kun couldn't wait to get in there and take a nap on the grass, which he did. He prayed to still be picked by the gods and then jumped in the painting with his grounding brush in his pocket.

Once there, he went on a little walk at first, going around, taking in the beautiful nature before laying down to take a nap.

He had done that so many times, went into a painting, admiring the landscape, taking naps on beautiful area, eating there, walking there, this time was no different, he fell asleep right away.

What he did not expect though was to be woken up by someone.

There never was anyone in his paintings. Never. He only painted landscapes with tiny harmless animals. Humanless paintings. Why was this little guy above him, trying to wake him up. It must have been a dream. To check that, he took his grounding brush and tried to paint something on his hand. If he were in a dream it should work, because things can happen in dreams. In his paintings he can't paint, he had tried it before and his brush only works in his painting office.

Nothing was on his hand.  
  


It was not a dream.

A bit panicked, he replied to the kid and tried to find information on how the hell this could have happened. Maybe he went somewhere too close to civilisation and a native was around.

_ I'm a painter too! I painted this landscape, from another point of view, probably because it was mostly forest, then I went in, walked around the forest and crossed it and what a beautiful meadow!

The kid seemed excited to see him, to see someone else like him. But Kun was scared. Everything he knew, all of his rules were now void. How could he trust his paintings anymore? This time it was okay because the kid seemed nice, but what if next time he jumped in a painting he ends up face to face with a serial killer who has the same ability?

_ Oh shit, did you hear that?

_ Hear what? Kun asked, still deep in his thoughts and not having heard anything.

_ Gunshots. I heard gunshots. Oh my god are we going to die? Can we die in paintings? How does it work?

Kun's level of panic rose up, far too high and he got up immediately, took the kid's hand and started to run away. He didn't even know where the gunshot sound came from, so he didn't know In which direction he should run, but he still ran and the kid didn't say anything, so it must have been the right way. They ran in the opposite direction of the forest, until they reached a little hill and climbed it. They could see the whole painting area from there, even though it seemed endless.

_ I don't want to die. I'm too young.

_ Nobody's gonna die today, kid.

At least I'm not going to die, thought Kun. He couldn't vouch for the kid, he _will_ try to save him but if it's either him or Kun, then he would leave him remorseless.

______________________________________

They had been there for a few days now, Chenle and Kun went along well enough and found a few topics they could chat about when they weren't too scared of dying.

In the evening of the first day, they found a little wooden house and decided to stay there until they could understand why their painting power didn't work and didn't let them go back home.

A few gunshot sounds could be heard here and there but it was mostly calm. Except from the agonizing sound of someone dying really close to their little house but they weren't brave enough to go and check. Maybe it was an animal, or a bad guy. Yes, it must be a horrible person. That's what Kun told himself that night so he could sleep.

During the night they both had nightmares.

And the knocking Chenle heard when he woke up didn't help. He thought some evil man like Bluebird or something came to kill him, so he woke Kun up and asked him to go and check.

Kun was way too scared to do that either but the knocking became persistent and he decided to go check out from the window. There were three people waiting in front of their door, one of them not older than Chenle, which reassured Kun.

_ Please, please let us in it's so cold outside, we have food!

That was the last straw that made Kun decide to open the door. When he did it, the kid started crying, the grown-up with blond hair and an astonishingly pretty face did so too. The other grown-up had his face covered-up, except for the eyes so it was hard to tell but he did seem relieved. Or he was constipated. No one knew.

They closed the door right after them and built some sort of a barricade because the newcomers told them more hunters were in the area, that's why they were running.

Along the chatting, not really pleasant chatting but it was necessary, they learned names (Jisung, Xiaojun, Doyoon) and how they ended up here (all got drawing powers). They tried to gather all the information they had about the hunters but none of them had much. Except that they were obviously dangerous and armed. And they were not.

The following days went by, trying to survive all together, they had to go fetch for water and food and always went by two, one staying in the house with the kids. While some were out, the others were trying to find a way to escape the painting, trying to paint somewhere, somehow and go to another less dangerous painting-place at least, but it never worked, whatever the painting material or surface.

They began to lose hope about leaving this place and decided that they might as well fight their way out and try to reach a city or something.

So they started hunting.

During the night, they tried to localise other hunters, tried to find one that was alone, and then they would attack them, get their weapons. They didn't want to kill anyone though so they tried to tie them up somehow before heading back to their headquarters.

It couldn't really be called a home.

______________________________________

One night, Kun didn't pray to the gods. He thought they abandoned him, he thought 'what for?'. Praying led him to this nightmare. And now they got tired of him and left him there to rot and die. So he didn't pray.

Weirdly enough, Doyoon noticed it.

_ You're not praying tonight?

Kun said that no, he wasn't, not tonight, and then went to bed, close to Chenle to stay warm, and keep the kid warm as well. There weren't enough of them so they couldn’t afford to lose a member.

Doyoon didn't ask further questions but started to think on his own bed, or what was used as such, Xiaojun was taking care of Jisung so he didn't have to and had all the luxury to think. About Kun, mostly. About how the both of them ended up here. And about how he always liked it when Kun prayed _to_ him. It made him a bit sad that he didn't do it anymore.

But life went on, and the five of them got enough weapons to leave their headquarters. They said goodbye to the house, took everything they could carry and left with guns in their hands.

They all hoped not to cross a hunter's path but they were ready just in case.

After a few hours of walking without seeing anyone, Kun felt uneasy. It wasn't right. They should have met someone by now, they should have been hunted. They saw a lot of bodies on the way, there should have been hunters. If they weren't there before, Kun was sure it was just a question of time. And he didn't plan on waiting to be attacked.

He took his brush and tried to get away once again.

It didn't work.

So he kept on walking, following Xiaojun's lead with the others, sticking right next to Chenle. He grew fond of the kid.

When the lights got dimmer and the sun was nowhere to be found, they decided they should build a camp. Each of them, including Jisung and Chenle, would guard the camp for a few hours while the others slept. Kun was on first guard duty and watched his... his what? His friends? Colleagues? Fellow preys? Anyway, he watched them fall asleep.

Except Doyoon.

Doyoon tried but didn't seem to succeed, probably too preoccupied by the possibility to die while sleeping. At least that's what Kun assumed when he joined him by the guard spot. They weren't allowed to light a fire but they could endure it for a night.

During what seemed to be hours, Doyoon and Kun talked, about everything and anything, about their life before all this madness happened, about their friends, their family that they both missed so much, about their hobbies, about painting... but mostly about their lovers. Kun haven’t told anyone from the crew, but back home, when he wasn’t going inside his own paintings, he usually spent time thinking about his neighbour. Oh, how Kun missed Taeyong. How he missed his smiles, his cookies, the way he knocks on their shared wall when he wants to know if Kun is there or not. Kun wasn’t in a relationship with Taeyong, per-se, but he fancied him, very much so. “If we get out of here alive, I’m gonna confess.“ He blurted out with the little bravery he had found in him while trying to survive… Doyoon didn’t just listen, he also talked, although not much, but he did talk. So Kun learned how Doyoon was in love once. With someone named Qian, who seemed really cute and sweet, at least from what Doyoon was saying but he was undoubtedly biased. “I’m gonna be brave too, if we get out of here alive, I’ll try to find him and confess”, Doyoon had said after Kun’s sudden burst of courage. Find him? Kun couldn’t understand, but Doyoon explained shortly after that even though he was madly in love with Qian, the person never really noticed him, and they went on about life without ever dating each other. 

Kun found it weird that they never had this kind of conversation before. They had known each other for weeks now, but never really talked. They really should have done it sooner, maybe it would have felt less dull, less boring, less dreadly.

Kun felt like Doyoon had always known him, he could anticipate his responses, saying stuff like 'oh right you don't like that I shouldn't have said it, sorry'. Kun couldn't pinpoint where he had met him before, if they had. Doyoon kept insisting that they never have but Kun thought it was unlikely for somebody to know him that well without having ever met him.

It was impossible.

So they must have known each other before this painting.

Maybe in another painting he didn't remember? He was a hundred percent sure there was never anyone in his paintings but his certainty proved to be untrustworthy lately so maybe there had been people in his previous paintings and he didn't notice or remember them.

Maybe if he could see his mask-less face he could pinpoint how he met him.

______________________________________

The night went by and each round turned out to be successfully boring. No hunters came to kill them, which they all celebrated before leaving their camp.

During the walk this time, Kun wasn't by Chenle's side. Well he was still with him, and was still making sure he was okay and nobody was there to eat his brain or something, but he was mostly talking to Doyoon. They just clicked so well. And Chenle noticed it, no doubt with the smiles and looks he gave Kun, which made the latter blush a little.

Maybe this painting wasn't so bad, Kun thought. If we could just get to a city, if we could get somewhere safe, then maybe this life wasn't so bad. Xiaojun was a good friend, Jisung and Chenle were really great and cute kids, and Doyoon... Doyoon was enigmatic but there's something really intriguing about him.

Kun didn't care about leaving the painting as much as he did a few weeks ago.

Until they finally reached the city.

It was nothing like they expected. They thought for sure that there would be a city somewhere, with people, with buildings, with life and civilisation. But this was nothing like it. Buildings? Of course there were buildings, mostly on the ground, with nature taking over and rats as inhabitants. Life? Well the rats seemed very much alive. Civilisation? People? Not so much, did the corpses lying everywhere count?

They were expecting a new life, a new beginning in this painting. They thought they could find someone to help them, to shelter them for a while until they found a job and got their shit together. Except nobody seemed to have their shit together in this city.

The world seemed to have ended.

And the only remains of it were the hunters coming behind them.

And shooting.

______________________________________

Kun was back to his little painting studio, his grounding brush in his hand, trying to paint something. But he couldn't. His grounding brush was supposed to work when he was not in a painting, so why didn't it work?

Doyoung watched him trying to paint something and watched him fail desperately. He had seen what Kun's painting did, and there was no way he would allow him to do that again. He thought Kun’s paintings were harmless, that he just went to forests, meadows, mountains and stuff. Not that he could meet people and fall in love. But he did, he met Chenle, Jisung, Xiaojun... and Doyoon, another version of Doyoung himself. And even though he didn't know it was him, he didn't know it was Doyoung and still he started to fall for him. 

He also couldn’t let him have a life. Because now that he heard about Taeyong, he knew how dangerous it was to let his own little Kun live in the canvas. If Doyoung had known there could be other people in the world he created for Kun, he wouldn’t have created one. All he did was try to be nice, try to make him feel good, he even gave him a hobby and special abilities! But no, the little bas- Kun, Kun had the audacity to go out of his way and find a fake lover in a fake painting made for a fake person.

Doyoung could not allow it.

Doyoung could not let the love of his life fall for someone else. Never. So even though drawing him on paintings was a fun way to see him again and he could spend time watching him, he could not risk it.

So he painted Kun once more, on a white canvas.

And he painted nothing else.


End file.
